More Adobe Crapware!
 

I just wanted to download Adobe Reader, since Nuance PDF Reader was rendering my PDF's badly.

Why can't I just download the Reader? Why must I get the useless Adobe Download Manager plugin to do it? And why does Adobe Download Manager install McAfee Antivirus WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME???

This is why I avoid Adobe products whenever I can. :mad::mad::mad::td::td::td:

What browser are you using? If Firefox there is PDF Download which I use instead of Adobe. Smaller, quicker and does not hog resources.

Try Foxit

Use this link to download Adobe Reader:

http://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

+1

They ask to install anti-virus
 

While it isn't easy to find, there is a checkbox to refuse the anti-virus. I found it after it installed the anti-virus but the uninstall worked fine. I think the Adobe reader X works fine but you just have to watch out for the sneaky stuff. A lot of free installs seem to do this; you just have to find and read the fine print. Google does it a lot, too.

+2

Light and fast.

I use SumatraPDF. Nice, light, and simple.

Or just download Google Chrome, which has in-browser PDF rendering built in independent of the Adobe plugins. Then just open your PDFs w/ Chrome if they're on your local hard drive.

I thought this was going to be about how horrible Acrobat Reader X is.

I have a textbook in .pdf format. My online class has open book quizzes. With Acrobat Reader 9 I could search through the text and find my answers. In Acrobat Reader X (with the same .pdf file) it won't search and find anything.

Also I have to copy from .pdfs to excel when i do my expense reports for work. With 9 I could copy just fine as text. With X it wants to copy as a picture.

...trying to figure out how to downgrade ASAP.

http://filehippo.com/download_adobe_reader/

Older versions are there. You should completely uninstall the latest version first -- maybe install it, run your favorite registry check software to get rid of any orphans, then install the older version.

I just uninstalled it and the Adobe site allows you to install the last version 9 so I just got it directly from Adobe.

I still got 22/25 on my last quiz looking through the text the old fashioned way, but it was so nice to search with reader 9. I tested out reader 9 after i reinstalled it and everything works as it did.

I agree. They really did a lousy job with the UI/interaction model of this version. I just uninstalled X and downloaded 9.4 directly from Adobe's download site.

Oh I agree, bloatware to the nth degree. Also seems to want to update and restart my machine seemingly once a day. I really can't stand it....

As the OP, I'm duty-bound to report back. :)

I uninstalled Acrobat and have been using FoxIt Reader, a free, small (the download is about 4 MB), and very fast PDF reader. To create PDFs, I use the free BullZip PDF creator (bullzip.com).

This leaves me without a PDF editing solution, but I've found I don't miss it.